Bilateral and higher voltage GaN… but not at the same time:

Transphorm is a California Wide Band Gap semiconductor start-up, part of the leading suppliers of power GaN devices today. They are part of the PowerAmerica consortium too. With the help of the latter, they developed and already ship limited samples of a bilateral GaN based device. They also developed a 900V version of their GaN devices.

Bilateral devices have been an interesting solution for innovative converter topologies for a long time. Fuji electric released a new type of IGBT power modules made for three-level conversion using a solution close to bilateral devices. The topology is called AT-NPC and uses RB-IGBT (Reverse Blocking IGBT). It’s also a very good solution for matrix converter (AC-AC converters mainly used for motor drives), which are double-side converters. Bilateral devices help reduce the device count by a factor of 2 to 4 for these innovative topologies.

Getting to higher voltage is also a key target for Gallium Nitride. The release of a 900V GaN device is good news for the market.

All these developments have been partially founded and had a technical help from PowerAmerica, which accelerated the development process – acknowledged Primit Parikh, COO of Transphorm.